Cleanliness is next to nothing, she has...

Cleanliness is next to nothing, she has to learn that everything has its name! That words can be her eyes, to everything in the world outside of her, and inside too, what is she without words? With them she can think, have ideas, be reached, there’s not a thought or fact in the world that can’t be hers. You publish a newspaper, Captain Keller, do I have to tell you what words are? And she has them already, eighteen nouns and three verbs, they’re in her fingers now, I need only time to push one of them into her mind! One, and everything under the sun will follow. Don’t you see what she’s learned here is only clearing the way for that? I can’t risk her unlearning it, give me more time alone with her, another week to--

Gibson, William. The Miracle Worker. Scribner, New York, NY. 2008. pp. 91-92.